Main menu

You are here

Trending

The Diaoyu Islands are a group of uninhabited islands located roughly due east of mainland China, northeast of Taiwan, west of Okinawa Island, and north of the southwestern end of the Ryukyu Islands. They are currently controlled by Japan, which calls them Senkaku Islands. Both China and Taiwan claim sovereignty over the islands.

Comment›Insight & Opinion

Japan picks wrong time to test Beijing

Leslie Fong says by buying the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, at a time when a power struggle is straining nerves in China, Tokyo may be unwisely giving Beijing a reason to assert itself

What are the chances of war breaking out between Japan and China over their competing claims of sovereignty over the tiny islands which the former call Senkaku and the latter Diaoyu? This was the question posed by a junior Japanese parliamentarian to a respected political grandee from the pre-war era. They were soaking in a private onsen two hours' drive from Tokyo. The young man had secured the meeting with the sensei - the respectful term used to address very senior figures in Japanese politics - through his grand-uncle.

The old man replied: "Tokyo has already thrown down the gauntlet by rushing to buy the islands from their private owner in the face of strong protests by both Beijing and Taipei. This is really pushing our luck. We may get away with it this last time but any further move which strikes the Chinese as even greater provocation is certain to leave them feeling their backs are to the wall. They will push back - their masses, already not too happy with us Japanese, will demand they push back - and then things will spin out of control.

"So, an all-out war, most probably not. But serious armed clashes, leading to substantial loss of lives, cannot be ruled out."

The young man said: "But, sensei, we were briefed at a party caucus last week that the purchase was to pre-empt Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara and his supporters from creating more trouble. They were talking of holding events on these islands and installing a weather station. Now that will really rile the Chinese, which is why Tokyo has to stop them. Can't the Chinese see that?"

The old man said: "Kato-kun, that's what your party leaders would say. But do you think the Chinese will swallow that?"

"But why not? Surely the Chinese will understand that with an election looming, that's the best Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda can do without getting the right-wing hawks on the warpath."

The sensei said: "See it from Beijing's perspective. It's heads we win and tails they lose. Even if it were true that the intention was to stymie Ishihara, the end result is we Japanese will come out winners. We will have asserted our sovereignty, never mind that our rhetoric is that we seek only to obtain and hold those islands, not nationalise them."

Kato said: "But those islands are ours."

The sensei said: "I am not so sure the facts are on our side. The Chinese cite Ming dynasty records from the mid-14th century to show Senkaku and other islands in the Ryukyu chain, including Okinawa, were already declaring allegiance to the Son of Heaven, not us, as vassal states. These annals are in a museum in Britain.

"We have nothing to show. We only took those islands by force just before the first Sino-Japanese war and bullied the Qing dynasty into ceding them as well as Taiwan to us under the 1895 Shimonoseki treaty after we won that war. Then came the second world war. In 1943, when the tide was turning against us and Germany, the Allied Powers, including China, met in Cairo and on December 1 issued a declaration, which, among other things, stipulated that once Japan was defeated, all that we had taken by force must be returned to the original owners.

"And on July 26, 1945, the same Allied Powers plus the Soviet Union issued another declaration reaffirming what was agreed in Cairo. Well, Kato-kun, we lost, didn't we? After we surrendered, we had to give up Taiwan, Penghu and so on, but for reasons I still cannot pinpoint, Nationalist China under Chiang Kai-shek did not take back the Ryukyu chain but agreed to joint administration with the United States.

"Maybe by that time the Yanks already had more than an inkling that the communists would soon take over China and wanted Okinawa, Senkaku and others to be part of the so-called first island chain encircling China, as part of a containment strategy. Then on November 21, 1969, Richard Nixon and our prime minister at the time, Eisaku Sato, came to an agreement in Washington to revert the administration of the Ryukyu chain to us, but with the proviso that the Americans would have the right to station forces on Okinawa. And on May 15, 1972, the islands were handed over to Tokyo. Of course both Beijing and Taipei protested loudly.

"This is why to this day, the US is careful to assert its neutrality on the issue of sovereignty, though in the very next breath, it tells the world that should war break out, Japan would be covered by the 1952 defence treaty it signed with the US."

The sensei said: "It's not the islets and the much talked about mineral wealth beneath the surrounding seas. It's their national honour, which they cannot allow to be tarnished, especially by us Japanese who invaded them so brutally.

"Moreover, the Chinese think we have stabbed them in the back. When prime minister Kakuei Tanaka went to Beijing in 1972 to re-establish diplomatic relations, it was agreed that the dispute over sovereignty would be set aside for future resolution. In 1978, when Deng Xiaoping came to Tokyo, he made that famous remark that resolution was best left to wiser heads in later generations. A long period of calm between us followed until Ishihara and others of his ilk started agitating.

"This is absolutely the wrong time to test Beijing! China is on the rise and the Chinese political elite are in the midst of a difficult leadership change. History has shown that, sometimes, an emerging power needs to assert itself against an existing power. In 1898, the US beat the living daylights out of the exhausted Spanish empire, ostensibly over Cuban independence. The Spaniards didn't want to fight but the Yanks needed to prove they were the next global power to be reckoned with, and went ahead to clobber them anyway.

"In 1904, we did the same. Japan shocked the world by whacking Imperial Russia on land and at sea and thereafter became the hegemon in Korea and the Liaodong Peninsula.

"Leaders also start wars when they feel their personal power and position are being challenged or when they need assurance or a distraction. By 1962, Mao Zedong had already started to feel he was being sidelined by his comrades after the disastrous Great Leap Forward and other campaigns. So he made use of a border dispute with India and launched a short war against the Indians, thrashing them decisively and assuring himself of total control over the People's Liberation Army.

"In 1979, after Deng's third rehabilitation, he needed to make sure the PLA was entirely obedient to his command. So he launched a campaign against the Vietnamese. His dictum then was that a naughty boy would have to be spanked if he misbehaved. There were of course other factors that led Mao and Deng to press the button, but don't ever underestimate the personal factor. So, now, when Xi Jinping is slated to take over from Hu Jintao, who is probably reluctant to let go of his grip over the military, and a power struggle seems to be going on, Tokyo wants to give them the catharsis they need?"

Kato took all that in. Then he exclaimed: "But no one will win if we and the Chinese start shooting!"

"Are you sure?" replied the sensei as he made his way out of the onsen, whistling The Star-Spangled Banner.